Three Turkish Soldiers Killed in PKK Attacks Militants Attack Police Headquarters with Rocket Launchers
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2015 Israeli arrested after West Bank attack that killed toddler JERUSALEM: Israel said yesterday it was interrogating Israeli media have dubbed Ettinger as the Shin Bet’s before the attack, when it announced it had uncovered a their property. Six months ago, authorities signed a year- the suspected head of a Jewish extremist group in the “number one” most wanted Jewish extremist. He has Jewish extremist movement of young settler activists long order preventing Ettinger from entering Jerusalem first arrest of an Israeli suspect following last week’s arson been arrested several times before and banned from the responsible for a June arson attack of the Church of the and the West Bank settlements, saying he posed a danger attack in the West Bank that killed a Palestinian toddler West Bank. Ettinger is also the grandson of the late Rabbi Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, a prominent there. He moved to the northern city of Tzfat, a hub for and wounded his brother and parents. Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist whose party was banned Catholic church near the Sea of Galilee, and a number of Jewish religious mystics. According to the Shin Bet security agency, 23-year-old from Israel’s parliament for its racist views in 1988. Kahane other hate crimes. The Shin Bet at the time accused In a blog post, Ettinger denied the Shin Bet’s accusa- Meir Ettinger was arrested late Monday for “involvement was killed by an Arab gunman in 1990. Ettinger of heading the movement. tion that he leads an extremist organization. in an extremist Jewish organization.” Ettinger has denied leading an extremist movement. Authorities said last week they have filed indictments “There is no terror organization, but there are many, The agency would not say if he is also suspected in His lawyer, Yuval Zemer, told Israel’s Army Radio that against two other young Israeli extremists and arrested many Jews, many more than people think, whose value the July 31 arson attack, but it has accused Ettinger of authorities arrested his client to appease an Israeli public three others in connection with the church arson attack. system is completely different than that of the Israeli heading an extremist movement seeking to bring about outraged by the arson attack. The Shin Bet said Ettinger’s group vandalized a number of Supreme Court or the Shin Bet,” he wrote in a July 30 blog religious “redemption” through attacks on Christian sites “There was no urgent need to arrest here, other than Christian religious sites in the past two years, tried to dis- post. “The laws they are bound by are not the State’s laws and Palestinian homes. some kind of desire to show, ‘Here, we’re doing some- rupt Pope Benedict XVI’s 2014 visit to the Holy Land, and ... but laws that are much more eternal and real.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thing, here, we’re arresting,’” said Zemer. “Of course, what committed “more significant terrorist attacks of arson” Also yesterday, Israeli security forces demolished a pledged “zero tolerance” for Jewish terrorism is better than the number one most wanted target?” against Palestinian homes in the West Bank over the past Jewish settlement house in an outpost of the Eli settle- following a pair of deadly attacks by extremists. The The arrest comes on the heels of a violent spate of year. ment that had been built illegally on private Palestinian Palestinians toddler was burned to death a day after an attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories that threat- A month before the attack on the church, Ettinger land in the West Bank. COGAT, the defense body that han- anti-gay ultra-Orthodox man stabbed a 16-year-old ened to ignite widespread violence in the region. called on his blog for more attacks on Christian religious dles civilian issues with the Palestinians, said the demoli- Jewish girl during a rampage against marchers at The Shin Bet would not say whether Ettinger had any- sites. He had lived in recent months in unauthorized tion was coordinated with the settlers and there were no Jerusalem’s gay pride parade. The teenage girl later died. thing to do with the attack on the West Bank home, Jewish settlement encampments in the West Bank set up protests. Authorities are now expected to crack down much which killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and severely by the “hilltop youth,” the Shin Bet said, using a term refer- Last week, settlers clashed with Israeli troops as Israeli harder on suspected Jewish extremist cells, particularly injured his parents and 4-year-old brother. ring to radicalized Jewish teen squatters on West Bank bulldozers demolished a contested housing complex in among West Bank settler youths. However, the agency singled out Ettinger two days hilltops who have been known to attack Palestinians and another Jewish settlement in the West Bank. — AP Three Turkish soldiers killed in PKK attacks Militants attack police headquarters with rocket launchers DIYARBAKIR: Three soldiers were killed in southeastern Turkey yesterday in the latest attacks on security forces blamed on the out- lawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the army and security sources said. Kurdish militants detonated a remote-con- trolled mine as a military convoy passed by in the Arakoy region of Sirnak province bordering Iraq and Syria, the military said. The explosion triggered clashes between Turkish soldiers and PKK rebels, it added. The army said two soldiers had died, and one soldier and one village guard were wounded in the attack by the “separatist terror organisation”, its customary phrase for the PKK. Later yesterday one more soldier was killed and another injured when Kurdish militants attacked with missiles an armoured brigade in the Silopi district of Sirnak, security sources said. The militants on motorbikes also attacked a police headquarters with rocket launchers in Hakkari province without causing any casualties, BAGHDAD: In this Tuesday, July 28, 2015 photo, a man reads a book at the Baghdad the Anatolia news agency said. The PKK has National Library, established by the British in 1920 on donations, in Iraq. At the start stepped up its strikes on the security forces in the of the 2003 US-led occupation, when chaos gripped the capital, arsonists set fire to last two weeks, as Turkish warplanes bomb its the library, destroying 25 percent of its books and some 60 percent of its archives, positions in northern Iraq. DIYARBAKIR: In this Thursday, July 30, 2015 photo, Adnan Seyit sits in his cafe in Diyarbakir over- including priceless Ottoman records. — AP Turkish F-16s bombed PKK targets around the looking the Tigris river, southeastern Turkey. In an abrupt reversal, Turkey and the Kurdish rebels district of Daglica in southeastern Turkey-long appear to be hurtling toward the return of an all-out conflict that plagued the nation for decades, seen as a PKK stronghold-as a reprisal for a mor- before a fragile peace process was launched in 2012. A truce that has helped bring social and eco- Facing IS threat, Baghdad tar attack earlier in the region that lightly wound- nomic stability to Turkey evaporated only a week into the government’s new offensive against the ed a six-year-old girl, the Dogan news agency PKK, which stretches from southeastern Turkey to northern Iraq. — AP digitizes national library said. The spiral of violence sparked by the killing claimed tens of thousands of lives. Meanwhile, an and killed some 260 militants. of 32 pro-Kurdish activists last month in a town explosion hit a natural gas pipeline transporting Ankara is waging a two-pronged cross-border BAGHDAD: The dimly-lit, dust-caked restoration, to either fill in torn edges or on the Syrian border by suspected Islamic State gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey in the eastern “anti-terror” bombing campaign against Islamic stacks of the Baghdad National Library layer the more-delicate documents with militants has left a 2013 ceasefire between province of Kars, the Anatolia news agency said. State (IS) militants in Syria and PKK rebels in Ankara and the PKK in tatters. hide a treasure of the ages: crinkled, yel- a sheer coating to make them more There was no immediate claim but the PKK northern Iraq. But so far the raids have over- According to an AFP toll, 20 members of the lowing papers holding the true stories of durable. has repeatedly targeted energy infrastructure in whelmingly targeted the Kurdish rebels. Turkish security forces have been killed in attacks Turkey in the past. On Sunday, two Turkish soldiers were killed sultans and kings; imperialists and social- The Baghdad National Library, estab- blamed on the PKK since the current crisis began. Turkish warplanes have for over a week car- and 31 wounded in a suicide bombing by a PKK ists; occupation and liberation; war and lished by the British in 1920 on dona- The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by ried out hundreds of sorties over northern Iraq, militant in the east of the country, the first time peace. tions and first overseen by a Catholic Turkey and its Western allies, took up arms for with official media claiming that that they have the group has used the tactic in the current esca- These are the original chronicles of priest, has weathered violent upheaval self-rule in 1984 in an armed struggle which has caused significant damage to PKK infrastructure lation. — AFP Iraq’s rich and tumultuous history - and before. At the start of the 2003 US-led now librarians and academics in occupation, when chaos gripped the Baghdad are working feverishly to pre- capital, arsonists set fire to the library, serve what’s left after thousands of docu- destroying 25 percent of its books and Myanmar admits ments were lost or damaged at the some 60 percent of its archives, including height of the US-led invasion.